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I noticed what seemed to be a deathly silence of the puppet mainstream released stop motion features. I am not hearing, excitement, buzz, & rumors about the next Stop Motion features? Example – Guillermo del Toro’s stop motion Pinocchio in perpetual limbo? My personal speculation was, that the power players who decide who gets the Oscars™, with their decision denying all three stop motion features, Paranorman, Frankenweenie, and Pirates Band of Misfits, released in 2012, that supposed prestigious award statue, that this sent a cold chilling signal to studios & suits not pursue the all puppet stop motion features? Their rational is, ‘Stop Motion’ features are not an immediate high box office cash cow for the suits/studios. Of course, they blame the ‘Stop Motion Technqiue’. IMO, kind of ass backward myopic thinking by the studios, BUT, I might be digressing. To my surprise this is a very early teaser just now released of a work in progress stop motion feature from Laika, called The Boxtrollers. Very polished & finessed of course. Just not sure of the story plot that might not appeal to the wider audiences. Maybe too early to make any judgments on such a brief trailer ….

5 Responses to “‘The Boxtrolls’ (2014) – very early teaser”

I agree with Dave.
I really liked in the preview when the introduction to the box trolls came with creepy music, I thought they’d be evil. I was hoping they’d go that route instead of where it seems to end up: this is his family or they become his family and these are trolls that are nice and nurturing. Pretty disappointed with that.

But I like the costume design a lot from what we saw in the family montage, notably “the extended family” bit.

Many of the recent films have had sort of the same theme: outsider dealing with fantastic situation. Coraline, Paranorman, Frankenweenie were all like this. So was Corpse Bride and James and the Giant Peach. It would be nice to get variety. Pirates tried, unfortunately the story wasn’t engaging. Individual characters were fun but they couldn’t make up for what was lacking.

The best humor in this preview is the throwaway gags that are there for a second or two. I hope there’s more of that because it gives it a different feel to the narrative and adds a level of absurdity that adults can appreciate. It would be kind of disappointing if the film is mostly what the last part of the trailer suggests – another kid straddling the normal world and the odd world and defusing some conflict when the two worlds meet.